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Welcome to The Foster Friendly Podcast. We’re bringing foster care closer to home by sharing stories from the front lines. We're talking with former foster youth, foster parents and others who are finding unique and powerful ways to dramatically improve the experiences and outcomes for kids in foster care.
The Foster Friendly podcast is brought to you by America’s Kids Belong, a nonprofit that helps kids in foster care find belonging in both family and community.
Courtney (00:01.688)
Hello and welcome to the Foster Friendly Podcast. My name is Courtney Williams along with my co-hosts, Travis Vongsness and Brian Mavis. And if those of you that have been listening for a while, you know that we typically do co-host episodes, you know, every three, four or five episodes or so. This is actually our 11th one doing this together, which is kind of fun. But today we're kicking off something a little different. We are kicking off a series special with our co-host Brian Mavis and he has a brand new book that's releasing called Go Upstream.
diving into foster care to heal 10 social wounds. And it explores how foster care connects to some of the biggest challenges our society faces. Things like homelessness, trafficking, addiction, and more. So over these next few episodes, Brian and I are gonna dive into these things. We're gonna talk to Brian and talk about his book. And we're starting today with just the why behind this book. Why did you write this book? What does he hope to get out of it? And how you as listeners can...
dive in deep with us along with this series episode we've got and then hopefully buy his book as well. We'll give you all these little tidbits today of why you need to go out and buy this book to gain more insight. So yeah.
Travis (01:05.021)
Ha ha.
Brian Mavis (01:07.347)
Wow, well, man, that book sounds amazing. So, wow, I know. And I wrote most of it. But before AI, I know Travis, you know, back in the day when I was starting on this, was like, and I do have writing experience. I've been writing for a long, long time. I used to have the world's largest email to pastors at one time back in the day.
Travis (01:09.395)
I was gonna say a little AI or can we?
Courtney (01:10.734)
Must be a good writer.
Brian Mavis (01:36.885)
a column and, you know, wrote a book that actually got published by Thomas Nielsen stuff. So, but now I'm obsolete. AI just can do it better than me. So, yeah. So yes.
Courtney (01:47.205)
Yeah. Oh, those days. Yeah. No kidding. So, Brian, let's start with this very simple question. Why this book and why now?
Travis (01:50.653)
man, that's a whole podcast episode right there.
Brian Mavis (02:00.201)
Well, the reason why this book, it's kind of several fold, and I opened the book with this quote by Frederick Douglass. I've loved this quote for so long. It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. And it's a profound quote that shows that, when you eventually maybe wait too long and a child who's seen a lot of hurt grows up to be an adult,
can be harder to help them get into a healing journey than if you had gone in sooner. And this is my attempt to help people step in earlier because those wounds don't go away as a kid, they deepen as an adult. And so this is my attempt. the other reason is that just personally, this was my own experience when I was a
pastor at a church and thought about social wounds in the community that needed people to step in and help. The wounds I thought of, and I think this is what a lot of people think about, were the ones that you kind of see. Homelessness, if you live in a town of any size, you can see homeless people and you can see mental illness and you can see addiction. you hear, though you may not see it, you hear a lot about human trafficking and...
those kinds of things. But gosh, I never heard about foster care and I still hardly, hardly do. And when you talk to community leaders and business leaders and they're talking about, you know, government doing stuff, foster care just never comes up. And I thought, I want people to pay attention to this because
Courtney (03:34.99)
Hmm.
Brian Mavis (03:51.829)
Foster care, if you talk to people who are experiencing these young adults and maybe not so young, these other social wounds of homelessness, addiction, mental health, being trafficked, crisis pregnancies, just all those kinds of things, and ask them about their childhood, you will discover an alarming amount of those young adults say, was in foster care.
And I was like, gosh, I mean, thank goodness for organizations, nonprofits, ministries that are helping these adults who are experiencing these harms and wounds. But would it be better if we had given them a family who cared for them and helped them give them space to heal as children so that they wouldn't have needed?
these ministries and organizations down the road. So like I said, this is my attempt to bring more awareness to the strategic position that foster care is in. That if you want to help human trafficking, become a foster parent. If you want to help reduce the number of homeless people, become a foster parent and on and on and on. So.
I'm trying to get this into the attention of government leaders, church leaders, business leaders to see that it's strategic. It's like, hey, we can whack at the limbs of the tree, but what about whacking at the roots?
Courtney (05:39.83)
Wow. If that doesn't give you a reason to pick up this book, I don't know what will.
Brian Mavis (05:43.349)
Again, yeah, I mean, this was my as a pastor was working on all sorts of different things. You know, it wasn't just because I have a good heart that I was into this and it was I thought, gosh, this is smart. was like, this is just a smart place to lean into. So I have a better brain than a better heart, I guess. So.
Travis (06:10.995)
Yeah, a great Brian line as you say all the time, like, it's not just a hard issue, it's a smart issue. So yeah, I love that line.
Brian Mavis (06:18.453)
Yeah, yes. And I think there's going to be a lot of people who resonate with that. I think there's a lot of people who are in this space because they do have big hearts. And it's like, there's a lot of people aren't in this space and it will take that other argument to have them say, OK, now I get it. In fact, I we I just heard that from a church leader last week. I had lunch with him and he was like at a presentation that I had done. He was like, that's the.
I never had made that connection that it was upstream to these issues. And he was like, now he was interested.
Courtney (06:56.31)
Yeah, I love that quote, the Frederick Douglass one and just thinking about that. I don't know the exact and I'll get it wrong, but I once early on in our journey, we had heard something like it takes about three years for healing in a healthy environment for a kid who's gone through trauma, three years for every year of trauma, every year that they were like in a hard place to get that. I'm like, so you think of how long that takes if somebody is an adult and had gone through this for years versus starting at, you know, when they're young and if they can get in a healthy, good environment, that's going to help them thrive.
Brian Mavis (06:59.219)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Mavis (07:12.527)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Courtney (07:24.468)
that'll just cut those years back and just yeah it's all this upstream stuff that we can really make a difference.
Brian Mavis (07:28.511)
Yes, yes, yeah.
Travis (07:32.563)
Well, before we get more into questions around the book and some of the content, I do have a general question for you that I've been thinking about because I know this project for you is, I mean, this has been a project for a while, at least how many years like?
Brian Mavis (07:39.881)
Mm.
Brian Mavis (07:44.725)
It has because, yeah, because it's been, I mean, I've been saying pointing out these 10 social wounds fought for basically the whole time you've been around, right Travis?
Travis (07:53.915)
Yeah, yeah, so almost, yeah, for my, yeah, at least seven, eight years plus that you've, okay, so.
Brian Mavis (07:59.734)
Yeah, so it's been living in my head for a long time and I've been, you know, researching and collecting articles. so, um, so yeah, I've been living with it for a while and it's, and it's been a while. It's taken a long time to get it into a book form because one books are hard to write. And two, I have a full-time job that doesn't include writing a book. So it was like, you know, yeah. And I wrote it before AI.
Courtney (08:20.876)
Yeah. Andy, you wrote it before AI.
Travis (08:22.267)
So, in the, or it came out of the scene in the, and so my question is kind of more of a heart question to kick this off, but you know, so being immersed in this, this is not new research. This is not new facts and things to you, but this sort of journey in itself to get this book kind of to the finish line, but also as you've been immersed in it. And then especially say this last year, I mean, you've been deep in.
you know, which is very sobering stuff. mean, I've kind of had a preview of the book, but I mean, as you get into suicide and just some of these hard, hard issues, like, I mean, I'm sure this must really galvanize you to the mission of AKB and going upstream, but like, where does your heart land now? And sort of, as you've just kind of, I guess, getting, got this book to the finish line. mean, how are you, how has that left you? guess, how have you, is that maybe?
Brian Mavis (08:58.249)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Mavis (09:19.859)
Well, you know, each chapter, you know, I take on a social wound and I interviewed a young adult who had that experience. They were in foster care. They were then leaving foster care and then experienced one of these social wounds. And the only one I didn't interview was suicide.
found a story there that was profound. And so I like that I started each chapter that way because it was like, remember, this isn't just statistics. These are real people. And I love how Jesus emphasized the importance of one. I mean, think a lot of people don't. There's a famous verse that people almost always misquote.
by Jesus, where they misquote it this way, whatever you do to the least of these, you've done unto me. And Jesus, they miss a word. It's whatever you've done to one of the least of these. And I really love how he focuses on the importance of an individual. And he also says that about kids, whatever you do to one of these little ones. And so, again, remembering that these are real kids, not
because this book is chocked full of statistics from research. I may have almost 200 cited sources, but it's just real kids and interviewing these real kids, young adults and saying, this was my life. And it was like hearing some of what they went through as kids. was like, my gosh, I I'm an old dude and I've never experienced anything like what you've experienced.
So I would say I'm looking forward to getting this message out and hoping that it creates a new conversation among people of influence. And again, I don't mean that. I can know like you're a big shot. mean, adults, parents, people who can foster, people can support foster parents, people who can adopt, people who can get their church engaged, all those things.
Brian Mavis (11:48.31)
people who have their business say, we're going to care about this. And I want to create a new conversation so that there is a major lift in people saying they're talking about this in a way that human trafficking might get that level of attention.
Courtney (12:10.851)
Yeah.
Travis (12:12.915)
So.
Courtney (12:13.238)
Yeah, yeah, just profound stuff and deep stuff. It's really is, you know, it's deep topics, things for people to consider and think about. Brian, I've heard you say that this book isn't just about foster care and these social wounds, but it's about foster care and family. Why do you give that emphasis?
Brian Mavis (12:19.966)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (12:20.081)
Yeah.
Brian Mavis (12:31.581)
Yeah, I mean, the title emphasizes the problem and family is the solution. And my favorite line in the entire book is, good families are better than a great program. And that's because I'm a big believer that what caused the wound was an absence of family or a harmful family, a very profoundly
broken family. if that's the cause, healthy families, caring families, healing families is the cure. And so maybe it's a temporary family because there's a reunification happening. Maybe it's a forever family because adoption is needed. Maybe it's a bio family, a kinship family, a foster family, adaptive family. The key word is family.
Travis (13:12.083)
Hmm.
Travis (13:31.623)
Yeah, I love that. It's a, I, and I kind of love how you, yeah, you're synthesizing some things that I don't think a lot of books tackle altogether. Like, you know, which is going to be kind of my next question. in the preface, as you start the book, you address two possible critiques against the book. So one, you don't go far enough upstream would be one critique. And then the second one, the system causes harm. Why did you start on those objections?
Brian Mavis (13:50.645)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Mavis (13:57.119)
Ahem.
Yeah, I thought, okay, I had written the book and I thought, okay, imagine a critic picking this book up and they're not reading to be curious, but to be judgmental. And I thought, what would their judgments be against this book right off the bat? And I thought, okay, one is, hey, you...
you aren't going far enough upstream. Why not stop the separation before it starts and prevent the preventable? I'm like, okay, yes, I am all for that. If we can keep a child from entering care, fantastic. But the truth is not every family can be helped enough or soon enough. And if you care about kids in care, one of the questions you got to think about is how's it
for a kid right now. And you can't just wait for the system to be perfected or to go upstream and beyond up upstream and say, keep the kids from going and care. I would say a lot of effort and money, millions, hundreds of millions, billions have gone into that. it's because it's tied mostly to addiction and mental health.
I am, I'd say this is probably the most controversial thing. I'm a skeptic that we can do that. I mean, from a spiritual point of view, it's like, well, you just solved sin, I guess. Good job. mean, there's a reality. I think there's a reality therapy needing to be done here. It's like, man, there are a lot of families or kids in harmful situations.
Courtney (15:42.862)
Thank
Travis (15:55.133)
You're right.
Brian Mavis (15:55.894)
You couldn't have helped. And so like a couple of quotes in one is from a child welfare expert. And this is a response to a 2018 thing that happened with Congress called the Family First Prevention Services Act and putting all sorts of money in keeping kids from going in to treat and to the foster system.
And so a couple of child welfare experts once said, we have very little evidence about what works to prevent foster care placement. And another who is a former child welfare worker said, for those closer to the ground level and less invested in demonstrating the act's success, there's not much to celebrate. And so even though I think it's a...
It's a law with really good intentions. It's facing reality and reality is tougher than they thought. So there's that. It's not far enough upstream. I'm saying, you know what? It hits a place in the river that right now is suffering and we need more people to step in. And then the second is that the system itself causes harm.
Courtney (17:00.001)
and
Brian Mavis (17:21.231)
And I don't deny that the system's got problems. It's got major flaws. It's far from perfect. But there's an adage that says don't tear down a fence until you know why it's there. And so before there was foster care, abused and neglected children had no formal protection. And I point out real quickly in the book that the very first foster child was a little girl named Mary Ellen Wilson.
She was nine years old and this was in 1874 and she was abused. She was locked away. It was a bad situation and there was no child protection agency to help her. So she was rescued by the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Animals had protection, but children didn't. And so the system is far from perfect.
Travis (18:12.435)
Wow.
Brian Mavis (18:17.599)
But the system isn't the cause of harm, it's a response to harm. And sure, the system can be better, but every day it is protecting children. And so the solution isn't get rid of it, it's improve it.
Courtney (18:21.983)
and
Courtney (18:35.352)
Yeah.
Travis (18:35.635)
Well, gosh. Yeah. Well, I was just going to add one thing too, is just the capacity of the system, the people that want to abolish foster care, you know, and you kind of hear that type of stuff and like, it's like, okay, well let's like flesh out the logic of that. And like, you know, we can all have ideals of stuff, but it's like, I think I came across a statistic of one in 10 kids across the country will, there will be a child welfare call made. mean, think of the, just the sheer numbers. There's no way in which you cannot have a system.
Brian Mavis (18:45.279)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (19:05.265)
that has, not have a holding place for at least an investigation. Yeah.
Brian Mavis (19:09.621)
For at least an investigation and again, unfortunately, many of those investigations lead to like, this was not really a legitimate call or yeah, there's something concerning here, but it's not dangerous or there's something concerning here and we can help right now or it's tied around poverty. I never think a child should be removed because of poverty. But then they're like some of those cases where they're like, no.
there is something very harmful happening. And so that's why you need something to protect children.
Courtney (19:48.867)
Yeah, it's sad. I'm actually in the process right now of planning one of our webinars called Understanding the System. And, you know, I'm planning it just going through these, I have heard time and time again, people saying, I would get involved, but I don't want to because I don't want to be part of the system. And just that whole concept. And we won't get into that today because that's part of this webinar is for. But yeah, just in planning it and just doing research and thinking about what so many families say, it's sad. And there really isn't an easy answer, but there are things we can do and there are dreams that we can have.
Brian Mavis (19:55.733)
Mmm.
Brian Mavis (20:03.816)
system.
Courtney (20:18.99)
And Brian, your intro, you quote Martin Luther King Jr. saying, I have a dream. It's not, I have a complaint. He says, I have a dream. And kind of the same thing for you. What's your dream? Not the complaint. We can sit here and complain all day about the system, but what's your dream for foster care?
Brian Mavis (20:24.991)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Mavis (20:34.471)
Yeah, because it's easy to complain about foster care. mean, there's all sorts of ways to complain about it, but I'm a personal believer that it's the preferred future, the vision of it that actually can inspire people to make a change because they know, like, okay, here's where we are, but where are we going? And so if you can show them, here's where we want to go, it can make a big difference. so my dream...
is basically, I fleshed it out a little bit more in the book, but it is that where no child would feel unloved, uncared for, that every child would feel like, okay, I do belong to a family. I have a family that cares for me. And where vulnerable families, families that are at risk of losing their child, that they do get help before the family breaks. But if the family does break, that foster families are plentiful.
Adoptive families are ready there that when those families step up and open up not just their hearts, but their homes, that communities rally around them and the kids and that it becomes an ecosystem of care and that in spite of the child entering into a hard situation that they can have.
the best possible experience and outcome while they're in there. Right now, that isn't the case. Too many kids are in the system having a bad experience and they're in way too long and then they age out not connected to a family.
Travis (22:23.357)
to
Courtney (22:24.556)
and then it takes longer and longer for them to heal.
Brian Mavis (22:26.933)
Yeah, and so and then they lose their own children to the system and so it continues so Will it ever be perfect? No, but it can be better
Travis (22:27.492)
Right, yep.
Travis (22:31.485)
Just...
Travis (22:36.593)
Yeah. Well, speaking of better. So let's go to the introduction. As we kind of move through this, you have a really powerful imagery. You know, and this is even on the cover of the book, but just of a, of, of water. So you have a powerful picture of a river and a waterfall in the intro. Walk us through that. What's that all about? As you have that.
Brian Mavis (22:42.462)
Okay.
Brian Mavis (22:55.933)
Yeah, so the title again is called Go Upstream. And that's not a new analogy. You've heard it before, but I did add a little new element to it that there's a waterfall. And so the idea is you're enjoying your time. You're sitting along this riverbank and all of sudden you see a body floating down the river and upstream from you is this waterfall.
You see this body fall off the waterfall, floating down the river. you jump in and you, these icy cold, strong current waters, and you pull this person out, you start to resuscitate them. And somehow you just, you have this instinct that this person was homeless. And then you go and all of a sudden you hear another scream and there's another body going, you swept down the river.
from falling off the falls. You jump in, pull them out, and this person, you know, has been trafficked. And on and on it goes. And you're just jumping in and saving these people who are experiencing currently one of these social wounds that we often think about. And then it dawns on you, like, I need to go upstream beyond the waterfall to figure out what is going on. And when you do, you discover that
These are young adults who have been in foster care and now they've aged out of care without a family and that waterfall is the moment that they've aged out and the river below is the social wounds that they face. A friend of my wife's and I, just a sweet girl who's a great advocate for kids in care, her name is
Annika, and she had this quote that I used at the beginning of the introduction, when youth age out of foster care, we age out of one crisis and into another. And so it's this picture of, hey, how about we go up beyond that upstream, beyond that waterfall, and then we still might have to get in the water with them.
Travis (25:20.179)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Mavis (25:22.719)
get in that river, but we're going to keep them from falling over the waterfall.
Courtney (25:30.646)
Yeah, that's it is like the imagery can really imagine it and think about that and just the dire consequences of falling off a waterfall. But that would, you know, it just puts it into perspective a bit. You mentioned these 10 social wounds. What are those social wounds, Brian?
Travis (25:35.347)
Yeah.
Travis (25:40.795)
Yeah.
Brian Mavis (25:48.66)
Yeah, so I go into each one fairly significantly. Like I mentioned, I start each one with a true story, go into stats, go into the connections, and then go in ways you can help. just real quick, I'll name each one. I'll give one stat to each one as a quick overview. And then I know later in this series, we'll do a deeper dive into
each of these. So first is trauma. And so this is the thing that all these kids experience. And I go deep into understanding trauma, the types of trauma. And the stat I have here is one in four children in foster care will develop PTSD almost twice the rate
of a US veterans of war. And I go into that chapter explaining it's not just PTSD, it's CPTSD, which stands, the C stands for complex and unpack that some more. The second one is physical illness. This one was probably the one that surprised me the most that this was the case, but about 50 % of former foster youth suffer from a chronic physical problem. And it's not just from being abused.
It comes from a lot of that lifelong stress that they've had now that it's ingrained in the cells of their body that causes chronic health, though it can be things that are attributed to abuse and neglect for sure. Third is suicide. Adolescents who have been in foster care were nearly four times more likely to have attempted suicide than other youth. Fourth is sex trafficking. Although statistics vary, a majority
of child sex trafficking victims ranging from 50 % to 90 % have been in foster care. Fifth is addiction. One third of those who age out report current struggles with drug or alcohol, with half admitting to illegal drug use post foster care. Sixth is poverty. One third of foster care alumni live at or below the poverty line. Seventh is homelessness.
Brian Mavis (28:13.429)
20 % of foster youth will become homeless the day they age out. Incarceration, 43 % of women and 74 % of men who were in foster care have been incarcerated at least once. Ninth is teen pregnancy. For girls who have been in foster care, the rate of pregnancy before age 19 is three times higher than that of the national average.
And then 10th is generational foster care. The strongest predictor of a child entering foster care is the mother's own history with the child welfare system. So if the mom has been in foster care, that is a huge predictor that their own child will be in foster care. And then the cycle continues and then we're back to one again and two and three. So those are the 10 social wounds.
Travis (29:08.403)
Hmm.
Courtney (29:12.552)
Yeah, things are sharing and it does go back to like the beginning when you were saying a lot of people don't recognize the connection. You know, these pipelines that lead to foster care and then the pipeline of foster care leading back to those things and just how it just keeps going. And yeah, really leading some change. And it starts with the understanding people need to know these social wounds, understand them to be able to have a heart for them and to see how they're connected so that we get more people involved.
Travis (29:27.911)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Mavis (29:38.963)
Yeah. Yeah.
Travis (29:41.179)
Yeah, it was extremely sobering. mean, is, you sit through and hear the accumulation of each one and just go, wow, that was terrible. This is even worse. This is awful. So, so we've kind of named those 10, kind of add onto what Courtney just said. So, and then some people that are listening to this right now are generally out in public that sort of have this response of, well, you know, I'm not fostering or adopting, you know, as staggering and sad as this is, you know,
Brian Mavis (29:47.455)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brian Mavis (30:06.943)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Travis (30:09.949)
This isn't for me, the book isn't for me, maybe the messaging isn't for me. What's your response to those people?
Brian Mavis (30:16.213)
Yeah, my response is not everybody is called to foster or adopt, but I believe everybody is called to care and there is something for everyone. there's actually two main sections of the book. So part one is the ten social wounds and part two is diving in and how you can help. And so I do talk about, know, I dedicate a chapter to how to become a foster parent and how navigating the system to is how to adopt from foster care.
But the remaining chapters are, okay, what if you don't foster adopt? And here's the other ways you could help. it's supporting those families who do foster and adopt with wrapping around those families in different ways or, you know, and then naming some other things that like being a CASA or that kind of thing. But again, wrap around as something that anybody can do without any sort of special license. Talk about how churches can make a huge impact. Talk about how
businesses can make a huge impact. Talk about entire foster friendly communities and how they can make an impact. And so I give real practical ways that people can help without being a foster or adoptive parent. And that it's essential because without those other people helping and those other ways, foster and adoptive parents fail and quit. And so
We need people to not foster. We need people to not adopt so that they can help those families and those kids and those other ways so that the whole thing is successful.
Travis (31:48.157)
hehe
Courtney (31:49.55)
so that they can help those families and those kids in those other ways so that the whole thing is successful.
Travis (32:00.721)
Yeah, yeah. This has been a summer of lots of flooding and can't help but now think of like images of flooding and water and streams. I was, there was a saw some images of this raging river and someone was caught out there and just going downstream. But you saw the people, you, not everyone could be in the water helping that person out. They had aligned, you know, it was just this.
Courtney (32:00.793)
For sure, yep.
Courtney (32:05.539)
Hmm.
Brian Mavis (32:24.084)
Right.
Travis (32:27.731)
As I'm hearing this, I'm thinking of that, like that image of like that rope that was tied on. Then you had multiple people on a shore anchoring that. Then you had people sort of communicating and kind of just getting this thing. But I mean like, right.
Brian Mavis (32:40.569)
Yes, and then when somebody's exhausted from helping, they like, well, there's somebody who has a cot and there's somebody who's providing a meal. so you need the whole thing.
Travis (32:47.164)
Yeah.
Travis (32:53.235)
Yeah. Because if someone just jumped in to be with the kids that are needing the help and the assistance or whatever, they're eventually not going to make it themselves or they're going to... So anyway, yeah. So think that's a great picture of looking at how the whole thing, we need all the things to work and everyone to have a hand. So last question as we wrap this sort of preview into this book, which I can't wait to read the whole thing. If you could leave listeners with one thought from your preface and introduction.
Courtney (33:15.362)
Thank
Travis (33:22.323)
Kind of what would it be, just what we've talked about so far.
Brian Mavis (33:25.417)
Yeah, it would be, I'll just reiterate what I've said that, you know, we don't have to just keep saying, hey, here we are downstream, seeing all these, you know, social wounds that are obvious to us and that you can get strategic, can get smart. You can go upstream. You can stop the fall before it happens. And you do that.
by being in foster care and supporting foster care. If you care about homelessness, if you care about addiction, if you care about poverty, if you care about teen pregnancy, if you care about physical health, if you care about suicidality, then you care about foster care. And it's better to go upstream and help them as kids.
Courtney (33:59.983)
Yeah.
Brian Mavis (34:24.655)
and then doing it by providing a family because a good family is better than a great program.
Courtney (34:34.493)
Yeah. Yeah, Brian, I'm excited. Again, just so our listeners understand, this is a series special, a special series that's going to be launched in addition to our regular Wednesday airing episodes. So we're going to have these special episodes going through these 10 social movements, talking about these things. In this next episode, Brian and I are going to go through diving deeper into these first few. We're going to talk about number one, trauma and the complex PTSD. Number two, those physical illnesses that Brian talked about.
Brian Mavis (34:43.519)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (35:02.902)
and three, suicide. And through those, we're going to just talk about why family makes all the difference. So that'll be the next episode. And then we'll have subsequent ones coming out in this special series, going through these different, 10 different social wounds.
Brian Mavis (35:16.095)
Thank you guys, I'm excited about hopefully creating a new conversation that will rally all sorts of people to helping these kids.
Courtney (35:26.986)
Yeah, it's not fun things to talk about, right? These aren't easy, lighthearted, but it's so important. Yeah.
Travis (35:27.123)
Yeah.
Brian Mavis (35:30.389)
Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, it is hard stuff, but yeah, each chapter ends with hope and the whole second section of the book is how to help. So yeah, thank you.
Travis (35:31.581)
Haha.
Travis (35:34.96)
Yeah.
Travis (35:44.275)
Cool. Well, yeah, we're looking forward to continuing this conversation listening.
Courtney (35:51.585)
See ya.
Brian Mavis (35:52.49)
Bye.